Chapter 81 - Sewers (2)

“Rotmiller, can you sense anyone inside?”

“The sewage stench is too strong to tell.”

“I see. Then I’ll go down first. Follow when I signal.”

The pit was about five meters deep and reminded me of a water tank. Slinging my shield over my back, I quickly climbed down the creaking ladder. I gave a hand signal, and the others followed.

“Something about this place gives me the creeps.”

As the torch lit our surroundings, a passage came into view, hidden from above by the angle.

“You lead from here.”

Murmuring quietly so my voice wouldn’t echo, I sent the man ahead and proceeded down the passage, rope in hand.

Had we been walking for about a minute?

‘Fuck...’

Corpses lay piled like heaps of clothing. Dozens of them, mummified like Hanson after his vitality had been sucked dry.

No wonder the smell of rot had been so strong.

“Uh, wh-what...?”

Judging by his bewilderment, this wasn’t how the place usually looked...

“Quiet. Keep moving.”

I shoved the man’s back when he stopped and continued forward, keeping every nerve on edge so I could react immediately if something happened.

That was why I managed to respond.

CLUNK.

With a sound like a mechanism engaging, a faint light began seeping through the pile of corpses.

Then a deep voice reverberated through the passage.

[“Sabeum, Bania, Hartia.”]

I didn’t need to see any more.

It was one of the trap skills available to a priest of Carui—the one whose distinctive sound effect had led me to nickname it “Sabaha.”

「Your character has entered the radius of [Call of an Evil God].」

Fuck, she set this up?

“Get back!!”

Even as I warned my companions, I hauled the man toward me with the rope.

The reason was simple. Sabaha wasn’t the sort of skill you could block with Physical Resistance or a raitinium shield.

“Huh? Wha...?”

The man, now clutched in my hand instead of my shield, made a bewildered noise.

At that moment, hundreds of banshee-like wraiths poured out from the far end of the passage.

“Agh!! Aaaaaagh!!!”

He screamed and struggled at the sight, but I kept my grip firm and hid as much of myself behind him as possible.

Thank goodness he was tall. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten away with this little damage.

「Your character has absorbed 102 wraiths.」

「Darkness Defense exceeds the required threshold.」

「The effect is reduced by 30%.」

「Your character’s maximum HP temporarily decreases by 29%.」

Vitality drained out of me as though a hole had opened somewhere in my body. My skin shriveled as if I hadn’t had water for days.

Misha was the first to notice the change.

“B-Bjorn, are you all right, nyah?!”

She immediately rushed over to check on me. Stopping her from making me drink a potion right away, I straightened from my crouch.

My muscles ached, probably from how hard I’d tensed them.

‘Fuck, I nearly died.’

[Call of an Evil God].

A trap skill that unleashed hundreds of souls in a designated direction when activated. Each hit from a soul reduced your maximum HP.

Naturally, reaching a maximum of zero meant instant death.

Like this man dangling from my hand.

“Is everyone all right?”

“We’re perfectly fine, thanks to you blocking them up front. But that man... is he dead?”

I didn’t bother answering. It would have been stranger if he’d survived when there was nothing left of him but skin and bones.

When I finally set down the man I’d been clutching, the dwarf muttered, sounding shaken.

“... I hate to say it, but it’s a good thing we put him in front.”

I agreed.

And I wasn’t ashamed of that fact.

We were heartless explorers, after all.

“What now? If there’s another one of those, going farther seems dangerous.”

After a moment’s consideration, I made my decision.

“We keep going.”

Setting up [Call of an Evil God] required various materials, chiefly human vitality.

There were plenty of corpses around, but not hundreds. She could surely have set it up only once.

‘Besides, I have this feeling that if I don’t fuck her up now, she’ll cause trouble later...’

I had no basis for it, but that was my hunch.

Just as we were about to leave, the dwarf handed me something.

“Nothing special, but I found this when I searched his clothes.”

It was the mummified man’s identification tag. I didn’t know why a fugitive would carry one, but...

“You can submit it to the administrative agency later for the extra pay... Wait, why that look?”

I froze upon checking the tag.

[Hans Marcom]

... He was a Hans too?

Tsk. Suddenly, I felt uneasy.

* * *

About twenty paces later, we reached the hideout Hans E had described.

It was better furnished than I’d expected. There was something resembling a bed, a table with leftover bread and coffee, and even candleholders mounted on the walls.

Except...

“Hahaha, nobody’s here?”

“Hmm. Either she’s left this place for good or she’s stepped out for a while.”

There was no sign of anyone, though there weren’t really any places to hide.

“Stay alert. She might be hiding.”

Still, we kept watch and searched every inch of the place: beneath the bed, under the table, even checking the walls for hidden compartments.

About five minutes of careful inspection yielded nothing.

Until Dwalki cast a spell.

「Leor Wuerv Dwalki has cast the Grade 8 support spell [Detect Mana].」

[Detect Mana].

A detection spell that revealed anything with a magical component, in one way or another.

“Well?”

“It’s inconclusive.”

“Inconclusive?”

“I can detect a faint trace of mana in this patch of floor... but it’s so faint I’m wondering if I’m imagining it.”

I examined the spot Dwalki indicated. Not being a mage, I couldn’t see anything unusual—not even a tiny blemish.

“Is there any way to investigate further with magic?”

“No. But if I were to hazard a guess, this magic seems to conceal something below.”

“I see.”

With my brief question answered, I immediately raised my mace overhead.

Watching me, the dwarf asked, “What are you doing?”

“Smashing it.”

“... Smashing it?”

I didn’t bother answering him again. If magical methods were out, wasn’t it time to try physical ones?

Like a proper barbarian.

BOOM!

The ground shook as my mace, now roughly twice as expensive and twice as large as my previous one, struck the floor.

But that was all.

“Bjorn, you can’t open a magical mechanism that way.”

Dwalki offered his advice with an air of having expected as much, but I silently kept swinging.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Perhaps because it was solid steel, the mace remained unscathed despite pounding the ground.

Of course, the ground was unchanged too, aside from a small dent.

Therefore—

“Stop it. Didn’t Dwalki tell you? That won’t...”

I removed my breastplate, took off my shoes and helmet, and set down my backpack.

Everyone’s eyes seemed to ask what had gotten into me.

「Your character has cast [Gigantification].」

「Your character’s body grows, increasing the Threat stat and Physical stats in proportion to size.」

My body roughly doubled in size, strength surging along with it. The dwarf was still spouting discouragement.

“Even for you, magic isn’t something you can just...”

It was impossible?

As both a veteran of this game and a practicing barbarian warrior, I still found that hard to agree with.

If you couldn’t break something with strength—

BOOOOOM!!!!

—you simply weren’t using enough.

“...???!”

Oh, excluding ghosts, of course.

* * *

“So that actually works, nyah.”

“Dwalki, what happened? Didn’t you confidently insist it couldn’t be done?”

“Uh, well... I don’t know either. Why did that work...?”

Leaving their muttering behind, I inspected the floor.

After a couple of blows, cracks had begun forming and light had seeped through. The third strike had finally smashed it open, revealing, surprisingly, a staircase beneath the hole.

“A hidden staircase in a sewer like this...”

It went so deep that even lowering the torch into it didn’t reveal the bottom.

It felt like a passage into a subterranean world.

“We’re not going down there, are we, nyah...?”

Misha looked at me uneasily.

Honestly, I wasn’t keen on it either. Since this had been a hideout, I’d expected, at most, a space big enough for one person to conceal themselves...

‘But what the hell is this?’

I felt as though I’d stumbled into something troublesome, but I was also a little curious. The sewers themselves had been off-limits in the game, after all.

Of course, I had no intention of risking my life out of curiosity.

But...

“Bjorn, I can faintly smell that woman down below.”

“What?”

“She definitely passed through here. Not long ago, either.”

Fuck, what should I do?

Should we call it a day, go back, and tell the authorities to handle the rest?

I grew increasingly torn, so I asked Rotmiller for his opinion.

“Rotmiller, what do you think? Would it be better to pull back?”

“... I think it should be fine to take a brief look. I can’t smell anyone down there apart from that woman.”

That answer was a little unexpected.

Perhaps my surprise showed, because Rotmiller gave a small chuckle and elaborated.

“For some reason, I have a feeling it won’t be all that dangerous.”

Hmm, so it was his Sixth Sense stat.

There was no firm basis for it, but I didn’t dismiss his words.

‘It’s more accurate than I expected.’

Rotmiller had, in fact, accurately sensed Hans E when he was hiding.

And his reluctance to approach the hideout?

If he’d sensed the danger of the trap, it made sense that he alone had opposed us when we voted.

‘Sixth Sense... Maybe it’s a better stat than I thought.’

At last, I made my decision.

“Rotmiller, you lead from now on. If anything feels even slightly off, we turn back immediately.”

Rotmiller’s instincts were fairly trustworthy.

* * *

“Deputy Commander, a ‘gate’ has been destroyed.”

A man frowned at his subordinate’s report.

Thousands of years ago, before Raphdonia had undergone its countless expansions, back when it was merely a lord’s castle, an underground refuge had been built.

And within it stood the city of Noark.

Members of the organization kept constant watch over most entrances leading here.

And yet...

“A gate has been destroyed? Could it be an attack by the royal family?”

“We consider that unlikely.”

“... Explain.”

At his urging, the subordinate hurriedly described the situation.

“We checked, and it’s a gate that was forgotten after the Church of Carui incident. According to the last reconnaissance report, a vagrant was using the area above it as a hideout.”

“Hmm.”

The man stroked his chin, an old habit of his whenever he was pondering something.

“The royal family has no reason to move against us now... But they’re intruders nonetheless. We’ll need to investigate.”

“Yes, sir. Which unit should I contact?”

“Is there any need to send a unit?”

Posing that question in return, the man turned to the woman beside him. She had been talking with him before his subordinate’s report interrupted them.

Something about a barbarian she’d once spared becoming a famous explorer in the city? For once, he’d been hearing an interesting story, only for it to be cut short...

“Amelia, you should be able to deal with them quietly, whoever they are. Would you go on our behalf?”

They could resume the rest of the story later.